Marlins Forced To Close Off Upper Deck Seats Due To Poor Attendance

This news shouldn’t come as much of a shock, given the fact owner Jeffrey Loria shipped off a chunk of the team in the off season.

The Marlins have the worst attendance in the National League with an average of 18,864 per game–capacity of the park is 37,442, and once the upper deck is closed capacity will be 27,000.

The block off will occur for the next 6 games of a 9 game homestand, and from there the Marlins will make a decision about the seating before each homestand. The Miami Herald reports:

The upper bowl will be closed for six dates in the team’s nine-game homestand that begins next Tuesday. Fans can sit only in the lower bowl for games May 14-16 against Cincinnati and May 20-22 against Philadelphia. The upper bowl will remain open for May 17-19 games against Arizona.

The Marlins notoriously draw sparse crowds, but the thought going in when Marlins Park was constructed was that the new state of the art stadium would draw a crowd.

Not only has it not, but the people of Miami are left paying the hefty taxes on it, too.